Harvey Weinstein
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I strikes me that what the dogooders in the film industry need to do is to get off the publicity seeking bandwagon and set up a independent body which allows those who've been abused to lodge confidential complaints, naming names. Said body would quickly become appraised of the worst offenders and could interact with the various victims in order to launch coordinated action against the perpetrators.
Lots of issues with this, but the absence of anyone suggesting this type of thing makes one suspicious of how serious the dogooders are to do anything substantive against the problem they say they feel so aggrieved about.
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@pakman said in Harvey Weinstein:
Lots of issues with this, but the absence of anyone suggesting this type of thing makes one suspicious of how serious the dogooders are to do anything substantive against the problem they say they feel so aggrieved about.
I'm no expert in dealing with victims of any type of assault, let alone sexual, but that is an incredibly simplistic view of some quite complicated, varied and individual needs.
I would hazard a guess that most victims have developed coping strategies of their own based on professional advice. These strategies may or may not include going through legal action.
They really would be 'dogooders' if they assumed they knew a better way for victims to cope.
The biggest changes in groups of people come from societal pressure. What is currently happening is great in that it is being made very clear to perps past and future that the ice has been broken and the attitude of sweeping things under the carpet will no longer be tolerated, therefore increasing the chance of either prosecution or ostracism.
One of the main reasons these victims are speaking out is that they see value to themselves in hopefully preventing these behaviours continuing. Even if some of the #metoo's are dubious in some eyes the fact they they feel the need to add weight to what is a genuine issue is a good thing -
@crucial although what you say is true, you are also missing on crucial point.
IF what Weinstein did was that bad, then every single person who was sexually assaulted, harassed, blackmailed etc, in effect allowed him to continue do this by not speaking up. Speaking up now is borderline pointless. Lets say he had 50 victims ... if you were number 1 and said nothing, then you are effectively are partly responsible for the next 49 victims .... if you are number 2, then 48 and so on ....
I'm not a buyer of the "because he's Harvey Weinstein" thing ... if speaking out about it is that damn hard, then go to the police confidentially. It's not that hard. Somebody sexually assaults you, then bloody do something about it.
Don't stay quiet for 15 years, whilst your career puts in the A-list upper echelon, commanding 10's of millions for a movie, then suddenly start speaking out when somebody else has the guts too.
Hollywood is a fucked up place, becoming more and more exclusively for fucked up people, with fucked up morals, fucked up judgements, and fucked up heads.
And yet it's powerful, because we live in an age where everybody thinks celebrities opinions are worth more than the shit paper they are written on.
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@majorrage said in Harvey Weinstein:
@crucial although what you say is true, you are also missing on crucial point.
Talk about amazing lack of self awareness!
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@majorrage said in Harvey Weinstein:
@crucial although what you say is true, you are also missing on crucial point.
IF what Weinstein did was that bad, then every single person who was sexually assaulted, harassed, blackmailed etc, in effect allowed him to continue do this by not speaking up. Speaking up now is borderline pointless. Lets say he had 50 victims ... if you were number 1 and said nothing, then you are effectively are partly responsible for the next 49 victims .... if you are number 2, then 48 and so on ....
I'm not a buyer of the "because he's Harvey Weinstein" thing ... if speaking out about it is that damn hard, then go to the police confidentially. It's not that hard. Somebody sexually assaults you, then bloody do something about it.
Don't stay quiet for 15 years, whilst your career puts in the A-list upper echelon, commanding 10's of millions for a movie, then suddenly start speaking out when somebody else has the guts too.
Hollywood is a fucked up place, becoming more and more exclusively for fucked up people, with fucked up morals, fucked up judgements, and fucked up heads.
And yet it's powerful, because we live in an age where everybody thinks celebrities opinions are worth more than the shit paper they are written on.
The crucial point (see what I did there) being that in single instances the victims would have weighed up their own situation against the likelihood of prosecution. Or even if evidence was deemed to be enough to warrant further prosecution, the reliving of a horrible experience through court while possibly ruining their career for a grope accusation.
This is the whole point about how people in power can get away with what they are doing for so long. -
I watched a youtube clip of Shapiro talking about Weinstein yesterday. I don't agree with everything Shapiro says ordinarily, and I don't agree with everything he says in his commentary here. But some of the things he talks about, especially regarding the transactional nature of sexual relations, have gotten me rethinking some things, so good on him for doing that. His perspective as a conservative who grew up in Hollywood and whose mother was employed in the industry is interesting, he has a good background on the lurid history. His remarks about PEDs and athletes making a decision between sitting in Triple-AAA or making millions in the Majors are also thoughtful in ths context.
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@crucial to be clear, my rant above wasn't aimed at you. More just a general rant.
Lets look at 3 examples who are now saying they were harassed by Weinstein - Jolie, Paltrow, Witherspoon. All have been a-list actors now for well over 10, if not 15 years.
Accusing Weinstein and demanding response for his actions could have been done 10-15 years ago. But it wasn't. IT wasn't even done 5 years ago - and it seems that in the previous 5 years alone, Weinstein may have harassed 20-30 woman (Total guess, but working on law of averages).
All lines about power positions, own situations etc are not relevant. They didn't tell, and god knows why. But piping now, doesn't do jack shit, when it would have been years and years ago.
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@majorrage said in Harvey Weinstein:
@crucial to be clear, my rant above wasn't aimed at you. More just a general rant.
Lets look at 3 examples who are now saying they were harassed by Weinstein - Jolie, Paltrow, Witherspoon. All have been a-list actors now for well over 10, if not 15 years.
Accusing Weinstein and demanding response for his actions could have been done 10-15 years ago. But it wasn't. IT wasn't even done 5 years ago - and it seems that in the previous 5 years alone, Weinstein may have harassed 20-30 woman (Total guess, but working on law of averages).
All lines about power positions, own situations etc are not relevant. They didn't tell, and god knows why. But piping now, doesn't do jack shit, when it would have been years and years ago.
I'm simply commenting from a point a view conveyed by females I know who have explained their own experiences and reasons for not speaking up. Even at levels of rape many do not want to go through the process of a public examination of what happened.
This is without even taking into account the aspect of power over their livelihood should the accusation fall over -
@majorrage said in Harvey Weinstein:
They didn't tell, and god knows why. But piping now, doesn't do jack shit, when it would have been years and years ago.
To be fair you don’t know that. Maybe the combined weight of accusations now will result in criminal proceedings where 10-15 years ago the individual cases would have been crushed by Weinstein’s likely very well resourced legal team.
Witherspoon’s story adds more to the story than all the metoo hashtags though. She was 16, certainly not a-list, and a child in US law when she was assaulted by a director. She didn’t keep quiet but her advisors told her she should. She was a child. Her advisors, part of the Hollywood machine, helped perpetuate this by choosing to protect the income stream ahead of the child they had in their care. For me that’s the story, not individual thugs like Big Harv, but the institutional fear of rocking the boat, because the cheques might stop. That’s the place where predators hang out.
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@canefan said in Harvey Weinstein:
@crucial Its really easy to talk tough and tell victims what to do. But how can any of us know what that's like?
Depends on the offense. If we're talking about being groped, then I know what that's like. You only have to go to a club to experience that - it's hardly a harrowing experience. But I am a guy so maybe my perspective is different, or in a feminists eyes completely irrelevant.
Talking to my wife she has been groped and harassed in clubs more times then she can remember. Her opinion is that the adult women that had this happen to them in the 'workplace' should have called it out at the time if they really cared that much. But they cared more about becoming rich A-list celebrities so put up with it. She also thinks there is a bunch of attention seekers trying to jump on the victimhood bandwagon, and that there is a bunch of feminists using this to further their "rape culture, all men are predators" narrative they love so much.
If we're talking about actual rape then that is a different kettle of fish, and I would never presume to know how that would impact someone. But the majority of these claims are "he tried it on and I rejected him" or "he touched me inappropriately". That stuff is not difficult to call out, even if you are unlikely to be able to prosecute him in court, but it will likely be career limiting in a place like Hollywood.
As @JC says, my primary concern isn't so much with adult women rejecting advances from creeps, but with the children that are being abused and exploited. That's seriously deranged stuff, and the stories I am hearing is that often the child's parents are well aware of what is going on. Utterly sick, and needs to be rooted out ASAP. And that's not just limited to Hollywood, though it appears to be prevalent there, but the pedophile rings worldwide are utterly disgusting.
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@Tim Ahhh my eyes, why would you post that!!
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@no-quarter My comments mainly regarded more serious crimes. JC's comments about the machine I totally agree with. Weinstein is bad but he is also a product of the system that enabled him by looking the other way or tried to protect him
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@no-quarter TBF, being groped as you walk around a club is a long way from being invited into a room alone and then groped and/or propositioned.
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@taniwharugby By your prospective boss/agent
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@canefan said in Harvey Weinstein:
@taniwharugby By your prospective boss/agent
who controls the industry and selects which scripts and which people succeed, and can destroy your career if they don't like you
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@nzzp said in Harvey Weinstein:
@canefan said in Harvey Weinstein:
@taniwharugby By your prospective boss/agent
who controls the industry and selects which scripts and which people succeed, and can destroy your career if they don't like you
and is wearing a dressing gown.